Posts Tagged Rabbi Ariel Stone

“Like many of us, the more normal moments of my or any human life were punctuated regularly and powerfully by the horrors our current Federal government is causing in our nation and in the world. As Jews we’ve been called upon regularly by our conscience as by our social justice organizations: תרדוף צדק צדק tzedek, tzedek tirdof: “Justice, justice you shall pursue”. The FULL TEXT of Rabbi’s Ariel’s Drash for Erev Rosh Hoshanah.

Shalom Shir Tikvah community, Last week’s Elul email contemplated teshuvah translated as “repentance.” Teshuvah is also translated as “return.” This meaning is derived from the Prophet Jeremiah’s plea in the Book Eikha, “Lamentations.” The book is an account of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people. They stream down the road, homeless immigrants looking for safety and shelter, for peace. Among the final words of the book, we read hashiveynu, “return us”: הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה’ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה, חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם. Bring us back to You, HaShem, and we shall return; renew our days as at the beginning. (Eikha 5.21) Hashiveynu – “cause us to return,” or, “help us to do teshuvah.” We sing these words at the close of every Torah ritual, and if you are feeling poignant, it is a moment to think of losses: innocence, optimism, the belief in a place of safety and certainty. Thinking of them and longing for them is the human condition that

Read at the Counter Protest to the fascist rally in downtown Portland on August 4th: Friends, comrades all, I greet you with appreciation and with love. I am unable to be with you this day, for on the seventh day we Jews believe we are commanded to cease from the activities of our week, and to offer that day up to G*d as a gift of thanks for the gift of life. But know that I am with you with all my heart and spirit on this day. Once again, those of us who are able and those of us who care are called forth to stand up and to proclaim that hatred, bigotry and violence are unacceptable on the streets of Portland Oregon. Once again we must rise up to declare that we will not allow bigotry to be bused in. We will not be silent when hatred

Friday, June 15th @ 6:30 pm צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים Tzelem Elohim We are all made in the image of God. Share a Pride weekend Shabbat evening with us.Whether you are part of our LGBTQ demographic or just grateful for Shir Tikvah’s glorious diversity, join us. Family friendly. Whether you’re just getting to know us or have been with Shir Tikvah since the beginning, we welcome you to join in. Bring a beverage and the following, according to your last initial: A-K Salad or a Side L – Z Main Dish Rabbi has announced a tofu challenge for the main dish option. Have a great tofu recipe? Share it with us on this Shabbat eve. Thanks to a generous donation, we’ll have a special dessert this month. Please RSVP directly to Rabbi. Shir Tikvah respects kashrut in our communal gatherings. All dishes must be vegetarian/dairy.

Once again, we are confronted with the horror of the moral failure of our society. And we devolve toward the same endless morass of media coverage, and the same awful words. Hate. Guns. Death. Once again guns. Once again the craven moral failure of congressional leadership, using this tragedy, once again, for political interests, proving themselves unable to lead us anywhere except further into darkness. Black Lives Matter awakened us to the failure of our police to “protect and serve”. What might it take for the United States of America to confront the failure of our elected leadership to represent us? There are more guns than people in the U.S. now. As a Rabbi, I do not seek to offer you a definitive answer as much as to help you find the ways in which Jewish tradition will lead you toward your own sense of your best moral response to evil. I

It’s that time of the year again! Put on a costume, stuff yourselves with cookies and wine and listen to the epic story of the Jewish people’s triumph over misogynistic, power-hungry anti-Semites. We have two events this year: our family-friendly Purim Celebration & Dinner requires an RSVP. Our Adult Adloyada does not. Wednesday, February 28th at the synagogue Family Purim Spiel & Great Yiddish Baking Show Hamantaschen Contest 6:00 – 6:30 Macaroni and Cheese dinner. BYOB and cookies to share. 6:30 – 7:00 Megillah 7:00 – 7:30 Dessert Adult Adloyadah. 7:30 pm. BYOB and bring a nosh to share. Our Family Friendly celebration Members and Nashira Project Families register HERE Guests to Shir Tikvah register HERE. $9/individual or $18/family The Great Yiddish Baking Show Categories: Biggest Smallest Best Isosceles Triangle Most Exploded Showstopper: one single perfectly formed DOUBLE-DECKER hamantaschen with a filling Mary Berry would love. Adult Adloyada Wednesday, February 28th Megillah

One day in a small town a long way from here, a long time ago, the Rabbi was heard humming a lovely melody that surprised her students. “Rabbi!” they said, “that’s a tune we’ve heard coming from the church!” The Rabbi smiled and said, “it’s perfectly all right. You see, a melody is like flowing water. It carries nothing, and belongs to no one.” “If the creator of a Jewish tune is known to be an unethical person, the melody should not be used.” – Rabbi Menashe Klein “The songs may be sung if they were created before the ethical lapse.” – Rabbi Moshe Feinstein On Shabbat VaYekhi this past week, our Rabbinic intern Davina Bookbinder offered a d’var Torah in which she raised the question for us to consider: where do we stand, when #MeToo comes to shul? Some of our beautiful melodies were created by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a charismatic prayer

Monday, August 28 11:00 am, Terry Shrunk Federal Plaza Rabbi Ariel Stone invites you to join her if you are able to march in defense of justice. Bring a shofar if you have one, for we will be sounding the alarm. Wear a tallit or kippah. There will be a march in Washington DC called by people of faith, called 1000 Ministers March for Justice This march protests the unjust acts of the current administration and its department of justice. They will rally at the status of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and proceed to the Department of Justice building. We in Portland join with cities around the nation to hold our own gatherings at the same time. Our gathering of peoples of faith will begin at the Federal Schrunk Plaza. After an opening prayer, the march will proceed silently past the Multnomah County Courthouse, the US Federal Court where immigration cases

Rabbi Ariel gave the following speech at an interfaith press conference on January 27th. Sacred ancient scriptures of Judaism, shared by Islam and adopted by Christianity, proclaim no less than thirty-six times, “You shall not oppress the stranger. You know the feelings of the stranger, for you have been strangers yourself.” Sacred American scriptures are engraved on the Statue that stands in New York Harbor, a statue whose full name is Liberty Enlightening the World. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” The Jewish community rejects the efforts of the Trump Administration to trick us into blaming our problems on helpless, stateless human beings who seek refuge with us. We condemn the banning of immigrants to our shores as immoral, as counterproductive, as